Thoughts on [My] Religion and Politics

Last summer, I didn't have any interest in following anything related to politics because it was just too stressful to listen to them argue, and I didn't really like my options anyway. I decided I would not vote, and stuck to it.

But when I started a new job, in a new town, it came up in conversation with my Boss (the owner of the company) what my preference was regarding the political candidates. Being naive about the ramifications of expressing [what would be] opposing views, I said I was leaning towards the economic policy Obama had put forward (because of how well the economy was under Bill Clinton [even though I didn't want him to win], and how well it did under FDR during the Great Depression).

Immediately, I was bombarded with words like "Socialist," "Communism," "Terrorist," and "Corrupt."

Now, I try to trust people until they give me a reason not to trust them...and I had no reason to accept those words as valid, because they were negative buzzwords used to get people riled up, especially coming off the War on Terror rhetoric (that even I supported back in 2003 when it started...but grew tired of it in 2005 when it should have ended by then).

I had nothing to explain myself with every time my boss wanted to talk about politics...so I had to start watching the news to figure out what he was talking about, and form my own opinions on the talking points. And I started hearing things that I agreed with....

I'll stop there, and talk about religion, because the two do meet, conceptually...

I was raised hardcore southern baptist - so much so, to the point of believing that any other protestant doctrine would send someone to hell, if it was not Southern Baptist. That was, until my parents up-and-changed churches. I have no idea why they decided to do it, or any of the many confusing, mind-changing, life-altering shifts they made while we were growing up. But all the sudden - one didn't have to be Southern Baptist to get into heaven anymore...you could be Non-denominational, or Southern Baptist now.

"All right, I can handle that...just so long as you're Southern Baptist or just plain Christian it's ok...but anything else is hell-bound." I thought.

Then they changed to a Methodist church - one of the very churches they spoke so negatively about because it had a woman preacher.

"wtf? seriously?" my thoughts were.

After I was "forcibly relocated" to my Dad's, I went to a church my family had gone to just before moving to the country. It was familiar, and I knew it was acceptable by their standards [whatever they were, if any] so it would be ok for me.

I went there for 2 years, but started realizing I wasn't getting anything out of it, and it was more for socializing than for anything at that point. And when I moved out on my own, I reflected back on everything I'd been through, and realized one important thing:

Jesus was Jewish - not Southern Baptist, not Methodist, not Non-denominational...he was Jewish.

From then on, what church one went to was only an indication of the finer, man-made interpretations of one what one believed...called Doctrine. Doctrine doesn't save you, doctrine isn't supposed to tell you how to live - doctrine is just a common interpretation of the "rules" of the bible that everyone in your church thinks you're supposed to live by...and every church is different - and they will fight each other over the differences in those doctrines, or impose them as "The Way" that non-Christians are supposed to change their lives and live.

I disagree with that concept. I do not subscribe to a doctrine - refuse to.

My beliefs are based on what I've read in the Bible, and how I am able to apply it to my life. Parables, prophecies, and miracles - they all have a purpose, and they all have a real-life component.

Parables are simply stories to explain a greater truth, in a broader, simpler way so everyone can understand what's being said, and apply it to their life - without the speaker having to tell each individual person (whether it's applicable to them or not) how to live their life. It's to get people to think on their own.

Prophecies are warnings that the current track you're on will either bring you blessings or destruction because someone (a third-party to the issue) can see from outside the box, the direction you are heading in. It's to get people to think beyond themselves (i.e. unselfishly).

And Miracles all have physical manifestations of some unusual act. I don't have examples to use, and would rather not explain away miracles. However, their occurrence (regardless of the initiating force) don't just "happen," there is an actual physical activity that is going on to produce it.

And as I started thinking about these things, I started finding things I agreed with...


And now the two meet: The more I found that I agreed with, the less interested I was in accepting things that I knew better about - whether they were naive statements that were poorly researched, or misquotes that were taken out of context and altered for a particular purpose.

I have no problem getting my Christian views to work with logical thought. Everything in the bible has a purpose - and the basis of it all is for the reader/believer to be able to live a better life while they are here, helping others, and not themselves, because true happiness is found in selflessness.
And I have no problem voting someone into office that has the best answers (or at least proven methods) of fixing the issues that we're currently facing. Obama, McCain, Hilary - they all make no difference to me...but Obama planned to use the same concepts that FDR used during his New Deal to bring the country back from recession. If we weren't in a recession, then I'd probably have voted for McCain so we could wrap up this war stuff.

My goal in conversations I have with people about either of these two topics is not to say they are right or wrong, but to say what my opinion is that would yield a better, more productive result. If it's about religion, you don't have to stand on street corners yelling "REPENT OR DIE!!" in Fort Worth...you can explain it to people in a way that shows the benefits their lifestyle would receive if they were to follow the examples of Jesus. If it's about politics, you don't have to straight-up disagree with the other party just because it's the other party. There are good ideas on both sides, and they need to be presented in a manner (and to people) that will be willing to make the compromises necessary to get the issue solved. Every solution is going to have unforeseen consequences, but that doesn't mean the answer is completely wrong.

As a good friend told me recently, the path to happiness is found when neither person is worried about "my turn to be selfish," and is working to help the other person. This holds for every kind of relationship possible.

Those are my thoughts.

Post-Valentine's Day update

Well, I've been focusing a lot of my spare time on my tech projects that I have going lately...and that seems to be the pattern around times like this weekend: when ever there is relationship fodder going around in my life, during those time that I cannot participate, I turn my attention to technology.

This month is dedicated to getting the Freeformfrog.com store online for the first legitimate time in the previous 5 years of conceptualization. I've been keeping up with how things are going via a blog so that people will get to see what goes on behind the scenes of a store, but also to use it as a platform for extending the reach via twitter, feedburner, and (later) the social sites.

It's been a good full-duplex experience for me, because at the same time, I have a parallel project at my real job, that is essentially redesigning our entire yahoo store. During my own store setup, I've gotten to implement some of the ideas for utilizing social networking that I was not immediately permitted to use in our own store...but also developed new ones, that we *did* utilize (primarily by just doing first, and asking later, if at all). I figure if it helps my job, or helps my personal store, it will help me.

I also discovered today that Google allows for syncing one's Windows Mobile phone, via ActiveSync, to get one's Google Calendar and Gmail Contacts. Unfortunately, you can't sync multiple calendards from Google - just the main one. So that gave me the outlet to cancel my subscription with OggSync, which I had been using before - and which I had no problems with (except the annoyance of the popup when I tried to exit, letting me know that it'll start up as needed because I told it to - granted, this was a setting I chose, but the notification still annoyed me).

So now, I have an interest in setting up [[Apoch]], my Windows 2008 Server, to house an Exchange Mail Server, and redoing [[Oracle]] from XP to Windows 2008, so that I can set that up as my phone's remote Exchange Server. Then I'll be able to get my home emails to my phone over the mobile internets. That will help with fulfilling orders on my new store, since I'll have to be on top of it, if they order a 1-day delivery.

Otherwise, on the social front, there have been a couple contacts made with people from my distant past. I find it interesting how memories that has since moved to the furthest part of the back of one's mind, can be brought immediately to the forefront - as well as the physical/mental affects this resurfacing can induce.

Anyway, this weekend went by quick...the week went by quicker than it felt like it would last Monday too. I didn't do anything on Saturday, but tonight I saw Bolt with MoriEndi, NarcolepticTime, and Beef. It was good for what it was - but wasn't something I was terribly interested in seeing when I saw the previews. It was a typical Disney mushy-adventure-sad-happy story. But it was also only $1.50 - so no complaints there. I did notice that they also have Yes Man and Day the Earth Stood Still showing at the same theater. So I will probably go see those on my own for such a cheap price.

But for now, I'm off to bed. I have to finish my project tomorrow at work, because I'm now a week behind due to several unforeseen complications with regular work, mixed with trying to get things right on the first try with the project.

The Week in Review

Well, I spent most of this week at home, working on code, only to find out Friday when I was almost done, that Yahoo's RTML doesn't allow you to keep track of an incremental variable, unless you use their FOR loop. And that would be fine, unless you're doing what I am, and trying to run a FOR-EACH-OBJECT loop and need that incremental variable in the html output so I can run a javascript over it. So that's what I get to work on Monday when I go back to the office. I don't know if I'm going to be able to continue to work at home though - I may need to get that re-approved.

Overall, looking back, it has been a calm week - at least the memory of it is. There were some bumps though, like my neighbor during the last issue I had with him, and also a small...scare (?)...more like an "uh oh" when I realized that I gave one of my former co-workers the link to this blog, and forgot that I wrote about my frustrations at that job here also...and she was mentioned. Oops. :-/ Well, because I'm me, it probably would have been better not to point her this direction, but because I did, I'll take whatever consequences arrise from it.

I also spent the week without talking to the girl from college I mentioned a couple posts back. I finally emailed her back late Saturday night explaining my thoughts, in as few words as possible, but trying not to sound mean about it. And she emailed me back, but I couldn't find the words to do another reply. I'm still trying to put the abstract into formulated sentences - it's just that the whole time we've been talking...for the first time, the logic side of me was ready to go, but the romantic side of me wasn't feeling it. She's pretty, smart, and financially stable - which has been a problem with a lot of my previous girlfriends...but without the romantic interest there (not being able to move myself past friends), it just doesn't feel right. I guess that would be a good enough explanation, but is there really such a thing?

Moving on, I went to Downtown Dallas with some Plano friends, and friends my age from Flickr, and we shot photos around the West End area. And, while I wasn't feeling the muse or inspiration, it was still a fun time. I enjoyed seeing Rachel again, and hanging out with Eric as well. It's good to mix energy with other people participating in the same hobby. It shares new or different perspectives and inspirations that wouldn't otherwise come.

When I got home, I uploaded the photos, and was ready to go back out and try it all again the next day. But, that didn't happen. I actually slept in till around 10 or 11, because I was up till past midnight hanging out with Chelsea, Chris, and Beth at Denny's. We talked about all kinds of things, and it was very reminiscent of the times we'd all get together about a year ago at Chris and his roommate's apartment and just hang out talking. Religion, relationships, addictions, idolatry, frustrations, and work were just some of the topics. I really enjoy that kind of get-together, and was ready to go late into the night with it. It brought back memories of being at ETBU in the lobbies or at Waffle House just hanging out. So maybe there will be more of those.

So after I recovered from staying up so late last night, I went to the store, and got lunch/dinner. Tonight, I was hoping to see the speech that Obama was giving in front of the Lincoln Memorial - but by the time I realized that the show I scheduled to DVR was a documentary, and too late for "this afternoon" (which was when it was touted the speech would be given) it was too late. But not only that, the documentary they said would start at 7 EST actually started at 5 EST...so I got there half-way into it, because they jumped the gun. Oh well. I had Brautwursts for dinner, and bought some Chicken, and salad dressing. This is the frist time I've had Asian Salad Dressing, and it tastes a lot like the Peanut Sauce the Thai Restaurant gives us for our salad.

Without sports, Sundays are pretty boring. So I'll probably start finding other things to spend my day doing. But whatever I find, it'll be something slightly different to go along with some kind of new liveliness I found during my outtings this weekend.

I've got more to write...some realizations, some plans, and other miscellanea...but if I put them all here, I won't have anything to say for a couple more days. So I'm off to bed now.

The answer is in the code...

I don't know if it's because it's new to me, or because it's just what I know best - but this past week, I've been enjoying getting lost in a coding project I've taken on.

We're doing a site redesign for the store that I work for, and while I was out browsing other websites and their features, I came across one that apparently spent a lot of money to have someone code a lot of features into their yahoo store for them. Just one half of the script I was working on costs $450 for someone to do. The other half costs $224. But neither one of them does what mine does, nor as good (if I do say so myself, and I do, because I tested the others on example sites).

Anyway, all it took was putting on some of my hacking music, and rounding up a whiteboard, notepad++, and firefox - and I was off in my own world, swimming in and out of logical loops...following streams of thought...coming up for air only when I ran out of Ice Water.

The only troubles I had were the interruptions that were many and frequent - and usually at the most inopportune time...right when I had a new objective, discovered a bug, or needed to address something I forgot. (This led to me being given permission to work from home, without interruption.)

This would be the first time, in a long time, I've written a program from scratch...and I liked it. So that's my plan for this year...

In the years past, there have been various degrees of involvement in the technology that I've elected to administer. The-spot.net's code has all but taken care of itself these days (with the latest programming techniques and phpbb 3.0's update feature, the site runs itself, and updating is no big deal)....my tech blog will surely get used more as the year goes on with some of the projects I'll be working on....and hopefully I'll get a podcast up and running at ThePizzy.net.

Thanks to winkydo's help, I've got a new server up and running so I can better administrate the one at work. I'll be doing more to learn MS SQL Server, and how to administrate a Windows Server and everything that goes along with Active Directory (and hopefully an Exchange Server if I can get one set up).

With all this focus on learning more, I recently decided to give up on a relationship that could not distinguish itself beyond a friendship with a girl I've known since college. I'm hoping that something else will turn up here in Plano this year, but I'm not looking for it any time soon.

So that's the plan:
1.) Work on me -working out, learning more stuff, getting involved in the things I enjoy doing.
2.) Work on finding a "her" - get out, meet some people once I've worked on me, and see what happens
3.) Start an "us" by the end of the year.